Artist Zach Houston writes poetry on demand

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Zach Houston bangs out his improvisational poetry on a manual typewriter at the Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009.

Zach Houston bangs out his improvisational poetry on a manual typewriter at the Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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Zach Houston bangs out his improvisational poetry on a manual typewriter at the Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009.

Zach Houston bangs out his improvisational poetry on a manual typewriter at the Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Artist Zach Houston writes poetry on demand

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An air of social investigation hangs about Zach Houston's public performances, such as his presentation of the "Poem Store" on Valentine's Day in his one-room show of drawings at Johansson Projects in Oakland.

The fast-talking Houston, who began his undergraduate years at Sonoma State University thinking he might become an anthropologist, is a born salesman, albeit one who cannot resist questioning the nature of commerce and commodities. "This is a receipt and a dollar and worth a cow," he quipped, pulling a bill from the kitty at Johansson.

He has set up the "Poem Store" in various places since 2005 - the Berkeley Bowl, farmers' markets, city street corners, everywhere offering poems for a price on themes chosen by the purchaser.

How much does a poem cost?

"Anywhere from free to $350," Houston said. "But people have also stolen things from me" on these occasions. At Johansson Projects, he was collecting fees in a hat blazoned with an infinity symbol that somebody had given him in payment at another venue.

"I was really interested in doing this in a gallery," Houston said, "where poems intersect with the fixed commodity status of art. I'm interested in bridging gaps between image and text and language and money. That's sort of the game."

At the Johansson Projects gallery, he sat behind a makeshift counter in a tiny room usually reserved for video projection, hammering out improvised poems on a tiny, slightly damaged portable typewriter.

"I think I'm missing 'o' and 'x' and 'a,' " he said. The uneven, overwritten typescript he produces with his instrument makes it difficult to tell.

Some of his clientele have never seen a typewriter. "A 6-year-old told me it was like a piano," Houston said, "a keyboard with hammers attached. I'd never thought of that, but it's true. I thought it was a wonderful metaphor."

I explained half-jokingly that such a transaction might involve me in a conflict of interest.

"I had a police officer say that to me," Houston said. "He was asking me to leave Union Square in San Francisco. I offered him a poem and he said, 'I can't accept gifts.' I said, 'But what about the First Amendment, officer?' And he said, 'Nope, no bribes.' That's the one time I've been shuffled along by police. You can't plead the First, apparently."

Houston's interactions with clients can be more emotionally taxing than placating the police, depending on the poetic themes they request.

"There are the ones like 'my father died last night,' " he said. "Those are really intense. ... There was a woman who wanted a poem about a lighter and apparently a few days later, her home caught fire, but the poem survived. She e-mailed me about it. ... I was approached by someone else I'd written a poem for earlier. She pulled back her hair and there was a burn on her face. She was like, 'I was reading your poem, drunk, by candlelight, when I fell asleep and into the candle, which burnt my face and part of my bookcase.' They were, I felt, kind of related."

Such coincidences crop up frequently in Houston's line of work. On Valentine's Day, he got requests from people, strangers to one another, for poems about the fourth dimension, the end of time and timing.

The last one came from writer Elizabeth Bernstein, who said of her visit to the "Poem Store," "It's a little like seeing a psychic."